


At the Tailor's

by ThistleBrows



Category: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 03:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11073444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThistleBrows/pseuds/ThistleBrows
Summary: A ginger-haired man visits the tailor. Multiple times. Brief oneshot.





	At the Tailor's

The first time he came in she treated him like any other customer, politely but without much attention beyond his orders. He was a thin ginger-haired gentleman, polite and smiling, she remembered.

The second time he came in, she worried he’d returned to make a complaint. That’s what they usually did if they came back the next day. But no, he just ordered the exact same thing and smiled politely. As she wrote down the details of his order, he waited patiently, pretending to be fascinated by his watch.

After he left, she watched him leave, only to go across the road to the chemist. She could see him through the windows. He was gesturing to many objects within the shop. At one point, as the shopkeeper went into the back, he started to browse the wares. The man brought a metal container up to his face and held it there for some time. Mabel couldn’t understand what was so fascinating about it. He didn’t seem the vain type to be looking at his reflection, but he must be because he was saying something to his own reflection. The shopkeeper came back into the front and the man paid. He carried a crate of supplies and left. That was the last Mabel figured she’d see of him.

The next day, he walks through the door and Mabel struggles to keep on her customer service face. The scientist, for that’s what he must be for purchasing so many supplies yesterday, was back again to re-repeat his order.

“I suppose at this rate a bulk order wouldn’t be remiss,” he joked sheepishly.

She smiled and nodded along. The scientist had a friendly face and an easy going, approachable manner. It was the self-deprecatory humor. Most gentlemen who came to get fitted or place orders took themselves very seriously, with grave faces and graver garb.

 _Bit of an odd bird, though,_ she thought. This time, the scientist made a pretense of browsing the shop, but she knew he had no intention of buying anything on display. Discretely, Mabel watched him pretend to examine anything that was near one of her many mirrors. And he seemed to be muttering inaudibly to himself. Based on his facial expression, she didn’t think it was about chemistry.

After a few more minutes of this, he came up to the counter with an embarrassed look on his face and ordered the same thing. I told him that each set of clothes he’d ordered would be finished separately, as all orders were filled on a chronological basis. He’d have to come back tomorrow to pick up the first order.

For a second she thought he’d made an irritated face at being inconvenienced, but when the man realized she’d seen, he’d hurried to reassure her otherwise. The moment he bid her farewell, he went back to muttering to himself.

Now, Mabel had the professional awareness to never ask something unless it was relevant to the work, but Mabel wanted to ask the man why he needed so many outfits of the exact same nature. Perhaps as a chemist, he frequently stained his clothes with who knows what kinds of tinctures and solutions. Surely people in that profession had aprons or safety equipment to prevent such stains? He must be a very clumsy chemist, she decided.

And that watch. Mabel had noticed the other day when he was fiddling with it that it wasn’t even wound. Was it broken? Surely a man who could afford so many clothes could buy himself a new watch if it was broken. Maybe it was sentimental and, despite a particularly bad chemical accident, he couldn’t bear to part with it.

The man really shouldn’t carry his work with him, she also thought. She’d also noticed a glass clinking sound coming from his pockets today, as he pretended to peruse the shop. Maybe that’s where all the stains come from.

It didn’t really add up, though, did it? If he was really so prone to spilling, then how come his shoes were fine? Surely he didn’t do chemistry barefoot.

Perhaps that really was the way with all those intellectual types. Clumsy and not paying attention. And he had such a charming and endearing nature about him that she wanted to forgive his eccentricities as those of a dedicated genius. One of those types with their head up in the clouds all day. There was enough misfortune in the world that Mabel preferred to assume the best of people, even if she knew it wasn’t realistic. She’d been teased as naïve, but what was so naïve about hope in the face of misfortune?

The fourth time the scientist comes in, he doesn’t. He runs in, and with two others: a thin and severe yet elegant woman and a shaggy haired American. The scientist has lost his morning coat and his shirt underneath is torn.

“Jekyll, we’ve got ten minutes, so make it quick,” the American said, his eyes trained on the way from which they’d come. He glanced at Mabel.

“Hi there,” he said, giving her a boyish smile and a raised hand.

She could only give a small, over-earnest nod, eyes wide and still trying to get to grips with the situation.

The scientist came up and leaned on the counter. He was still trying to catch his breath, so she saved him the trouble.

“Same thing today, sir?” she asked.

He nodded, bent over. The American had moved over to one of the mirrors and was looking himself over. One of the vain types, then. The woman stood apart from the displays and mirrors, looking out the window. It seemed like she was expecting something.

Mabel didn’t bother writing down the man’s order. She didn’t need to. Instead, she went in the back and brought out the clothes that were from the first order a few days ago. It didn’t take long to make all of the adjustments. The clothes were made to a base pattern in advance, and then fitted to measurements after purchase. Usually there was further fitting adjustments afterward, but she had a feeling that the scientist wouldn’t be taking advantage of those services today.

She gives him the clothes, and he mutters a quick thanks.

“Hurry, doctor,” the woman warns from over by the window.

The doctor looks at Mabel apologetically and rushes out the door with the other two. It takes some time for the crowd outside Mabel’s shop to disperse.

The man, whoever he was, had now gone from one of a handful of perplexing characters to the weirdest encounter, or series of encounters, Mabel had ever had.

So he was a doctor. Maybe he tore his clothes when aiding patients in emergency situations, whatever those could be. She could think of no other context for the urgent scene that’d exploded into the shop. Since then, gossip permeated the streets all day. Fears of war, explosions, people dying- it all sounded very outlandish and extraordinary to her.

Still. There wasn’t much that could explain what happened in her shop that didn’t also spell disaster somewhere in the city. Hopefully it wasn’t an omen of things to come.

Mabel went to bed uneasily that night.

-

The doctor did not show up the next day. Because of the chaos of yesterday, business was slow. Mabel got two more of the doctor’s orders ready for pickup.

One of the few customers to come in that day was a man who did nothing but talk about yesterday’s events the entire time that she was taking his measurements.

“An I ‘eard some pretty strange things too, mind you! Not just conspiracy plots and scaremongering, but I mean some downright peculiar stuff. Someone said they saw a woman and a man running around like they were being chased, and this man was an American mind you.”

Mabel’s eyes widened and her ears perked. She let him go on.

“An’ the woman, well, people saying she jumped over an entire gate, almost like flying. But not only that,” the man said, pausing with relish, as if he could feel his audience hanging on his every word- which she was. “it gets weirder.”

Mabel fought back the urge to drill him with questions. He’d probably draw it out even longer if he knew just how attentively she was listening, though she suspected he could tell.

“There was this ginger-haired fellow, too. Can’t really call ‘im a man per se, though. ‘E had trousers on and shoes, but from the waist up ‘e was totally naked because,” the man then paused for dramatic effect, “because he was a beast from the waist up. Where a man should be, there was this big hulking brute.”

Mabel’s previous thoughts stopped in their tracks. This wasn’t the direction she’d expected his story to go. At this point, she couldn’t stop a question from tumbling out of her mouth, “Whatdoyoumeanabeast?”

“You know,” he drawled, “He looked like a man, but huge and deformed, like a giant ape. Biggest arms I ever saw. And he was running along with the American and the woman.”

“Where did they go?”

“Beats me. Rumor’s all over town, claiming to have seen them first hand. Maybe they did go all over town, but I didn’t see ‘em.”

Mabel frowned and bit her lip. After the man left the shop, she couldn’t focus on any clothes save the ones ready for the doctor to pick up.

He had ordered so many shirts, and the description of that beast was that he had been shirtless… Surely there was some reasonable explanation for something that was far from a coincidence. She couldn’t fathom what it could be.

-

The next day there was still no sign of the doctor. At this point, she’d finished all of his orders. It was only until five minutes before closing that someone came to pick them up. It was the woman.

“Hello ma’am. How can I help you?”

“I’m here on behalf of Dr. Jekyll,”

“No problem,” Mabel said, making a mental note of the last name. “Couldn’t make it today, could he?”

The woman wasn’t looking at Mabel as she said, “No… he’s not here.”

Mabel hid the mortified expression on her face by turning away and heading to the back. She gave the woman the clothes and the woman paid.

“Thank you, ma’am. Would the doctor like to place another order in advance?” she asked hopefully.

The woman was already walking toward the exit, but she paused and turned her head to say quietly, “Dr. Jekyll won’t be making any more calls on your services, I’m afraid.”

The door shut loudly behind her.

Mabel never saw her or the doctor again.


End file.
